


"Second to the Right and Straight on Till Morning"

by nothing_in_particular



Category: Plan B (2009)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-04-07 05:19:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4250829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_in_particular/pseuds/nothing_in_particular
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruno is 40..</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ‘Time is chasing after all of us..’ JM Barrie

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story in chapters. The end has only been written in my head, so do bear with me. It may change..I have been wanting to write a sequel to my last story about Plan B for some time now. What happens to Bruno and Pablo a couple of years down the line? Do they remain together? What happens when Bruno (and I always think it will be Bruno) our wild card, our Peter Pan, (sorry Pablo i think that may mean you are Wendy) starts to age. When Bruno starts to feel the weight of perceived failure? 
> 
> I also just liked being inside of their heads for a little longer... I felt I should just get the first chapter up as a way to motivate me to get on with the rest. There are more, but this story is not finished as such. Not quite sure where it will lead me. Feedback and comments loved a lot. NIP

Bruno was going to be 40. 

As he entered his 39th year the thought of being 40 had seemed distant, around the corner, that bend in the road that he couldn’t quite see past. But now it peeped around those corners and whispered ‘surprise…’

40\. An age for adults. 

An age when dreaming stops. When adventures cease and stock taking begins. Didn’t do this – cross. Did do that – tick. More crosses than ticks? Too late. Game over. Count the coins, leave two for your eyes.

Bruno had noticed a grey hair on his chest and then when having a pee a single white pubic hair. He had nearly pissed on the floor. Gingerly he tried to pluck the chest hair out with tweezers but the first try on his chest had hurt like hell ‘fuck, fuck, fuck’ he’d muttered and rummaging around in Pablo’s ‘useful things drawer’ had found some small nail scissors and had cut both hairs off. But they soon grew back and brought friends. Bruno requisitioned the scissors, his ally against ageing. Cut. Grow. Cut .Grow. The familiar rhythm of Bruno fighting his body.

Naked he stood in front of the full length mirror in the bedroom, breathe in, breathe out. Not fat, not thin, a middle aged man’s body, a slight tummy, a thickening. A few lines around his eyes and Christ, some more white flecks in his long, curled hair. The gym had gone to the wayside over the past few years. Bruno had become settled and sleek, happy to sit at home and be cooked for, loved and stroked, like a large, indulged house-cat. 

Pablo came into the room, arms full of a basket of freshly ironed clothes. He said nothing about Bruno being stark bollock naked, Bruno often did odd things. Like the time Bruno had decided to jump out of Pablo’s Mother’s wardrobe and wrestle her to the floor. He had later explained that he thought it was Pablo. Luckily Pablo’s Mother had a sense of humour.

‘I’m getting old’ said Bruno. Pablo half listening as he busied himself with putting away and hanging up, crooned to Bruno like a parent to a child, ‘No, no Bruno, no’ and he absent-mindedly kissed Bruno’s forehead and walked out with the empty basket. 

Bruno lay on the bed; the sheets cool against his naked skin and stared at the ceiling. He screwed up his eyes harder and harder until the colours of the ceiling changed and Bruno had an overwhelming sense that if he looked long enough he could make the ceiling disappear and he could fly up and out into the deep blue sky. He could feel the rushing air against his skin and the dampness of clouds as he flew headlong into them. He could taste freedom on his tongue and it stole through his body like a small blue flame.

And then a dragging down, a landing, and ‘Bruno, Bruno.’ 

Pablo was calling him, ‘Bruno, can you come and help me with the bins?’ Bruno sighed, jumped up, pulled on some pants and a pair of shorts and made his way out of the bedroom.

It was dark and Pablo lay beside him snoring gently. Bruno could not sleep. Had not been able to sleep for many weeks. 

He had noticed that Pablo had not noticed. Pablo didn’t notice a lot of things now. 

Pablo was too busy with his photography. An exhibition in a local gallery had become a regular slot and then another gallery and then a website and then mentions in blogs and twitter and tumblr and then the local press and ‘suddenly’ Pablo was an artist. He sold photographs and multimedia pieces and had new friends with expensive clothes who laughed at everything Pablo said, but didn’t seem to see Bruno. Pablo was out a lot photographing and ‘creating’ and Bruno had stopped accompanying Pablo on his forays out into the city where he looked for new material, after Pablo had complained Bruno talked too much and was ‘distracting’. Instead Bruno went for longs walks and found new places to sit and smoke. Like a little boy with his den he would skulk away hidden from sight and sit staring at the sky or the sea.

Sometimes he’d talk to himself, sometimes not. 

When Pablo was at home he just seemed to spend his time tidying and ordering and arranging. This goes here Bruno and no Bruno that goes there and we do this today Bruno and that tomorrow and everything has a place Bruno. Sometimes Bruno felt himself tidied away too, pushed into the corners along with the dust and the spiders and the things that no one seemed to need. 

Here in the night the darkness felt suddenly thick, like treacle and Bruno lay there still and scared. His Grandmother had died 6 months before and Bruno was still waiting for her to appear. 

Here I am. All is well.

But nothing and no one and now he wondered if there was just this blackness and he thought of his grandmother crying soundlessly into the abyss and swallowing back a sob, he reached out for Pablo, wanting to touch, to caress. Make it alright my love. Hold me close and kiss me. Light of my life. But Pablo in sleep moved away from Bruno’s hands and Bruno stayed awake alone until dawn. 

Bruno had started a film course, but as is the way with Bruno he had started and never finished and he had done the same with trying to learn English following an unfulfilled dream to travel to Scotland, but that had petered out when Bruno fell asleep in the first class and then he’d been taken by the idea of acting (at which he excelled) but he stopped going for reasons he now couldn’t fathom and then there were the drumming lessons and the novel (two pages and then a semi obscene drawing) and cookery classes and in the end nothing had been completed and Bruno was back where he started, working during the day with Victor and coming home to Pablo and love and hugs and married life and ‘kiss’. 

And then things started to unravel. It seemed to happen so fast. One minute Bruno loved Pablo and Pablo loved him and the next, well Bruno still loved Pablo, but Pablo, Pablo seemed distracted and busy and full of new ideas and new places and people and Bruno felt old and scared and tired. 

When he did sleep his dreams were full of endless roads that he trudged alone. He’d tried to fly in his dreams, but his legs felt heavy and his arms even more so and he was weighted down to the earth, tied to it and Bruno knew that at some point he would be dragged down into the soil, his face covered, his mouth full and the light gone forever.

Bruno spent Saturday on his own, sitting under a particularly beautiful tree. He had stopped himself from phoning Pablo to ask him to join him because Pablo was off somewhere talking to another creative director of another art gallery about another exhibition and Bruno had no idea what reaction he would get. He was fed up of the sighs and the ‘what now’s’ and the small intake of breath when Bruno dropped a sock on the floor and didn’t immediately pick it up. Had his life been reduced to this? Working, going home, cleaning, cooking, sitting in silence, lying untouched in a bed that suddenly seemed vast, getting older and not wiser (and the knife twists in a breaking heart). 

It was on that day as he sat under the tree, listening to the soothing rustle of leaves and the sigh of air through branches that Bruno first thought about leaving. He would set aside some money, pack a small bag, leave Pablo a letter, open the front door and go. 

But (pause) leaving Pablo.

A sharp intake of breath. 

He could never leave Pablo.

Bruno shook his head and squinted up at the sun, letting his body relax in the heat. The thought blew right out of Bruno’s ear and into the air, a black bubble carried up, up into the deep blue. 

The thought gone Bruno wondered how many chocolates he could fit in his mouth and whether Pablo could fit more and then he considered what the capital of Belgium might be and then he thought about going home. 

But that small seed was sown. 

When he got home Pablo was waiting for him, face anxious ‘where have you been? I was worried’ and before Bruno could answer Pablo had pulled him close and lifting his hand to Bruno’s face, cradling his left cheek, pulled him into a kiss. Pablo’s warm tongue pushed into Bruno’s mouth and Bruno pressed himself hard against Pablo as suddenly the world become silent and all was them and this and nothing and no one else. ‘Come to bed’ said Pablo thickly and Bruno nodded, his throat tight and he let Pablo lead him by the hand. 

Lying in Pablo’s arms, feeling Pablo’s soft kisses on his forehead Bruno closed his eyes and pushed his face into the crook of Pablo’s neck and breathed in deeply, he pressed his lips against stubble and warm skin ‘I love you’ he whispered and all was well and the past few weeks forgotten and Bruno fell asleep smiling.


	2. “The centre cannot hold…”

Later that week Bruno is helping Pablo stuff envelopes with invitations to the opening night of Pablo’s new exhibition. “ So” says Bruno. “ How many photos are there of me at this exhibition?” Pablo looks at Bruno and smiles “ All of them, every single one is of you. Of course you are mainly naked”. Bruno stares at Pablo, waits for Pablo to laugh, but Pablo stares straight back, unblinking like a cat “ No man, what the fuck!?” He knows what photos Pablo means. Flashes of a cold evening and a warm bed and Bruno drunk and playful and in his Brazil football top (and not much else) and Pablo clicking and laughing and moving a leg here and an arm there and a ‘God you’re so beautiful’ and ‘click’ and ‘captured’ and then hot wet kisses down Bruno’s chest and long dark hair against the soft, delicate skin of Bruno’s inner thigh. ‘Pablo, my Mother will be there and Victor, Christ’ and Bruno pauses and thinks of Victor his long suffering friend and now father of 3, silently gazing at a giant photo of Bruno’s cock. His skin prickles and he swallows hard. And Pablo laughs and laughs, head thrown back and suddenly Bruno realises that he hasn’t heard Pablo laugh in a long time and he remembers how much he likes it and then he wonders why Pablo hasn’t laughed for so long and that thought worries him and gives him pause but then he looks up at Pablo, his head thrown back and laughing still and Bruno looks at his long, brown neck like a hungry dog looks at a bone and he leans over and licks Pablo under the chin and soon Pablo stops laughing. 

Bruno is lying on top of Pablo who has his legs up high and tightly wrapped around Bruno’s waist and his breath is hot and warm against Bruno’s lips and he garbles incoherently as Bruno pushes into him and they move together in a perfect rhythm, sweat and heat and muscle. And Bruno loves him and loves him and loves him as he pushes and pushes and he is lost, lost in Pablo, Pablo surrounds him, the heat of him, the hard, slick sweaty feel of his body, the soft pant of his breath as Bruno moves his hand between them, between Pablo’s legs and his hand pulls and slides and ‘oh’ and Bruno looks into Pablo’s large brown eyes, but Pablo is unseeing, and he moves his head to the side pressing his cheek into the pillow, his mouth red and swollen with kisses. ‘Bruno, Bruno’ and then Bruno groans and Pablo arches and their mouths meet frantic and hard, Bruno’s hands cradling the back of Pablo’s head as he pushes his tongue deeper into his mouth. ‘You, only you’ thinks Bruno and then they collapse into each other, panting and laughing and Bruno suddenly remembers that he has forgotten to do the shopping. ‘Shit’

The Gallery is hot and full. Bruno seeks out the beer and fiddles with his hair, worrying a curled strand between his thumb and forefinger. He feels, dislocated, out of place. Exposed. And wants so much to go home, crawl under the bed-covers & sleep this all away. Then noise and laughter and Pablo comes over and introduces Bruno to Magnus, he does something at the gallery. Bruno does not hear what. He is absorbed in just looking at Magnus. Magnus is tall and blonde and young and beautiful. Swedish, he speaks perfect Spanish and Bruno hates him. He hates his blue eyes and his tanned skin, his white, straight teeth, the way he turns his body towards Pablo when he speaks, it’s very slight, a mere incline, but Bruno sees it. He sees the way Magnus very faintly licks his bottom lip as he talks to Pablo and Bruno is reminded of a giant wolf. ‘He wants to eat you all up’ he mutters, but Pablo does not hear him, or pretends not to and carries on talking to Magnus and some woman with red hair, a dumpy English woman with bad Spanish. ‘Who the fuck are these people?’ Bruno thinks and then suddenly he sees Victor and his heart lifts. Victor looks tired and is unshaven, but he sees Bruno and smiles, a wide smile, ‘ Hey, Bruno’ and he pulls Bruno into a hug and kisses him on both cheeks. ‘ I need a beer man, get me beer. I’m covered in baby sick and I’ve had three hours sleep, I need beer’ and they look at each other and both laugh. 

The Art gallery is large and bare and full of brick walls and exposed pipes. Victor looks around appraisingly. ‘Did they forget to plaster this place?’ and Bruno snorts into his wine. The gallery soon fills up with artists and academics and writers and film makers, Pablo’s new friends. Bruno knows no one apart from Victor. Why does he not know these people? When did Pablo meet them all? Why did Pablo not introduce him? And despite Pablo’s joking, Bruno is nowhere to be seen in any of these photos or installations. Even the small film where Marisa reads Neruda over images of the sea and then shots of Victor paint brush in hand and Pablo’s Mother and (what the fuck) Magnus. In all of this, Bruno is not there. 

Bruno starts to feel that maybe he is disappearing and to convince himself he is not he stands for some time in front of the mirror in the gallery’s entrance hall. He touches his beard, his greying beard and looks at his crumpled trousers and his little tummy in his colourful shirt (his best one). He looks old. He looks like a man no one sees. 

Suddenly that urge to leave overwhelms him, like a wave pulling him away from the shore. 

He could just slip out of the door and stroll down the wide tree-lined avenue until the art gallery and Pablo was far away. He could carry on walking until ahead was only the road. But he doesn’t. Because that only happens in stories and instead he walks back slowly into the main room of the gallery and surrounded by people and light and heat and the buzz of conversation, feels totally alone. 

The photos are beautiful. But Bruno does not take them in. He is not in them. Does not notice that the photos of the sea are taken from where Bruno and Pablo had first sat smoking a spliff, or that there is a photo of the balcony where he had told Pablo about the clouds being like horses and the film, the film is about love, but Bruno ignores all of this, his eyes blind, his ears deaf. All he sees is Pablo mingling and talking and Magnus is always to the left of him, touching his arm here, whispering into his ear.

‘I thought that went well’ says Pablo and he yawns. Bruno stares out of the window of the taxi and says nothing. The silence continues until they get into their flat, ‘Coffee?’ says Pablo and Bruno says ‘No, thanks I’m tired, I’m off to bed’ and heads off to the darkness of their bedroom, it is cold and he shivers as he undresses. Pablo does not follow and Bruno hears him talking, he is animated and laughing and for some reason Bruno knows he is on the phone to Magnus and his heart shrinks and grows ever smaller. 

The next day Bruno packs a bag. A small blue bag. He packs a pair of pants, a pair of socks, a t-shirt, some shorts and a toothbrush and hesitating, he takes a small photo of Pablo from the drawer in his bedside table and adds that too. Then he stuffs the bag into the back of his wardrobe. 

He doesn’t know when he will go; he just knows he must go, before he is too old, before Pablo leaves him, before he breaks down. 

That night he dreams of a dark open sky and a long white road illuminated by the moon. In his dream he shivers, although he is not cold.


	3. Enjoy the silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's short..more to follow

The day after is like any other. Bruno goes to work and Pablo is still asleep. Bruno doesn’t kiss his cheek as he leaves, as he has always done, he has to get used to not kissing Pablo. 

And so it begins. 

Bruno is quiet at work, he plasters one wall and then another, he and Viktor in companionable silence. He doesn’t tell Viktor of his plans, he feels tired of talking now and the months of not sleeping are catching up on him. A weariness sinks into his bones. He thinks of his Grandmother and her soft white hair and his eyes fill. He misses her and he is lonely and he is sad and he is fed up of feeling this way. He has done nothing and is nothing and soon he will be nothing, just a footnote and Bruno thinks all of this as he smooths the plaster onto the walls. Viktor senses something is up. ‘Hey Bruno, you ok?’ he asks as they eat lunch. ‘Yeah’ says Bruno. ‘Just tired, not sleeping you know?’ and not sleeping is something Viktor does know and he snorts and tells Bruno about how baby Carlos is teething and he was up and down all night and Marisa had to sleep in the twins room and then the twins woke up and no one slept all night, ‘I’m seeing fucking double Bruno, you know, I mean I love them to death, but they will kill me’ and Viktor carries on talking and doesn’t seem to notice that Bruno does not respond. 

And the day progresses, the walls are plastered and Bruno feels comforted by their smoothness, their flatness, how the wet, brown plaster has covered up the brick and the cracks and the imperfections. Inside him there is a stillness, for the first time ever he is not full of plans and dreams and questions and what if’s. Maybe I am an adult now, Bruno thinks.

When he gets home Pablo is out and there is a note that he will be late back. Bruno crumples up the note and throws it into the bin. He quietly goes into the bathroom and silently washes the plaster off his hands. He doesn’t whistle or hum, or talk to himself as usual.He peels off his clothes and drops them into the linen basket (that in itself is a first) and steps into the shower and the water runs hot, cascading down his body. Then Bruno slowly moves towards the wall and rests his forehead against the cool tiles and there he stands until his legs ache. 

When Pablo comes home the flat is dark, and Pablo cries out ‘Bruno, Bruno, where are you?’ He finds Bruno in their bedroom, lying on top of the bed in shorts and a t-shirt (again a first) and Pablo without a 2nd glance, talks at him about the evening. ‘Magnus is very keen for me to go to England, a gallery in London, looking to have an exhibition of South American art…’ Bruno nods and makes slight noises. ‘I’ve never left Argentina Bruno; this could be the start of something. They saw my work and loved it. Europe Bruno! I mean fuck! Just think of it! And Magnus says he has some interest from the press over in the UK. It’s just so…’ and he waves his hand around his head as if hoping to pull the feeling from the air and looking at the ceiling smiles shyly, ‘it’s just so incredible. I feel like I’m flying you know? Like an out of body experience, like I’m looking down on myself, fuck…’

In the past Bruno would have jumped in enthusiastically here. And talked of the first time he heard Black Sabbath and how that had been an out of body experience, or the time he had nearly drowned in the sea when he was 10, but his cousin had pulled him out just as he was focusing very intently on a small crab that seemed to be beckoning him or when he had smoked so much dope he hadn’t been able to feel his face and he’d started to think another Bruno was sitting in the corner looking at him. And he would have told these stories loudly, moving around the room, gesturing wildly, pushing his hair back from his face, tugging thoughtfully at his beard, stealing small glances at Pablo to see if he was enjoying it. Tonight he just lies there. ‘That’s great Pablo. I’m so pleased. So pleased for you man’ and the he yawns and says he is tired and rolls over and pretends to sleep. 

In the silence he can hear Pablo texting.


	4. King of infinite space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so delayed and so short, but more will come. Life has been so very busy, but the other chapters are written in my head just need to get them down on paper! The end of this story is in sight people!!

Pablo is out. Again. Some kind of dinner with potential funders for the South American exhibition in the UK, or was it someone from the US about a book? Or maybe the University about Pablo taking on more teaching? Bruno was told, but can’t remember. He does remember he wasn’t invited. He does remember it is at Magnus’s flat, but the rest, it just floats. 

He is lying on the cold concrete floor of their outside passageway, on his side, staring at a black beetle that is making its way valiantly up the wall. Bruno looks at it intently ‘ So very small my little friend, but you keep on going, up and up. So very small and such a big, big wall.’ And he salutes the beetle for its fortitude and rolling on to his back takes a long drag on the spliff he is holding. The drug hits his brain and he should feel relaxed, but all the time his stomach is churning, he taps his left hand restlessly on the floor and slowly sits up. ‘I need to leave Beetle, but where to go? Who will have this?’ and he prods at his tummy. Lifting up his t-shirt he bares his soft, plump stomach to the beetle and slaps it, again, again. ‘Who will have this?’ And Bruno starts to cry, softly, hot, salty tears falling into his beard. He feels old. He feels tired. He is scared of the darkness, scared of what waits at the top of that wall. For the first time ever Bruno wants it to stop. ‘I don’t want to die’ he says to the Beetle. It has stopped its climb, to listen maybe, Bruno thinks. His respect for it grows. ‘I just want to carry on being me, you know, what will I be if I’m not me?’ says Bruno, ‘ I never asked to be a man, you never asked to be a beetle, but here we are’. And he wipes his tears and gets up and goes for a piss. 

The following day Bruno pretends to be half asleep when Pablo wakes up and gets ready for a day of work, he is off to take some photos, ‘I’m looking at how we can all fly’, he says , in way of explanation, ‘Like Peter Pan’ he grins looking over at Bruno for that small, warm spark of connection but finds none and Pablo frowns. ‘How we can all fly - eventually’ Pablo continues hesitantly, ‘become something else, something new, you know?’ But Bruno does not know. He is Bruno. He will be Bruno until he ceases to be Bruno and then there is nothing. Fini. And that is fucking frightening. No one fucking flies. And Bruno sticks his head under the pillow and says nothing until he hears Pablo close the door quietly behind him and leaves. 

Bruno is not Hamlet. He quietly makes that decision. He is talking to the Beetle again, which is resting on the cool tiles of their kitchen floor, Bruno sits next to him, a companion. ‘I need to do something Beetle. All I seem to do is talk and talk and DO NOTHING’ and he punctuates his conversation with a bite from the very green apple he holds in his left hand. ‘I have to go, before I am got rid of, cos you know Beetle, you know, that is coming’ and Bruno closes his eyes and his constant day dream, of Pablo slowly and calmly and oh so fucking NICELY telling him it’s over plays on repeat. He shakes his head from side to side ‘ No man, no, no’ and he gets up and grabs his phone from the table and a half an hour later the ticket is booked and in a weeks’ time Bruno will be on a plane, off to see his cousin Santiago in Uruguay. He will take his little bag and slip out when Pablo is out and as Pablo is always out then his departure will be pretty damn easy. Bruno stands pressed against the table in the kitchen, his hands curled around the edge and he breathes, deeply, in, out, in, out and for the first time in months Bruno feels at peace.


End file.
